One Down, Two To Go

My math seminar met this morning for the second-to-last time. I was hoping we wouldn't meet during our final exam period (as required by law), and indeed we will not. And I was hoping the homework assigned today would be the last one. Instead, the professor assigned no homework today. ("I know it's the end of the semester," he said.) Next week will be a little bit of a wrap-up plus a show and tell from him about Daubechies wavelets.

Even though not having this last homework is a very small thing, I'm immensely relieved by it. I'll go next week, of course, but as far as having to do actual work, the course is over for me. He did say that if we aren't quite at an A, we can have an extra assignment due finals week to make it up. My average, however, is something in the A+ range, so I can safely skip that.

Whewwwwwwww.

Tigerlily's Unfortunate Adventure

This morning, around 7 AM, I awoke to the sounds of Sammy meowing, and Ed starting his shower. It's not unusual that Sammy wakes me up before my alarm goes off at 7:30 (which happens 7 days a week so that he is fed at more or less the same time every day), so I promptly went back to sleep.

But Sammy kept meowing, wandering around, and I realized that (a) it is unusual for him to meow in the morning - he usually wakes me up by purring or touching me, and (b) hey, wait a minute, that's not his feed-me meow, that's his Tigerlily meow!

And I remembered wondering about why Tigerlily hadn't come to bed yet, when I went to bed.

And I remembered closing the open balcony door right before bedtime.

And I got up and rushed over to the balcony and opened the door.

And Tigerlily was pressed into the opposite wall-hugging corner of the balcony, looking terrified. She meowed piteously several times after I opened the door, but wouldn't come in right away, so I went to tell Ed what had happened, and she came in shortly afterward, still looking all scared and moving around in the tail-down, low-running way of scared cats.

Poor Tigerlily! She seems fine now (all rubbing on everything in the house), and I'm just really grateful that it wasn't a super cold night. (We've had snow and freezing temps lately, so this isn't a silly consideration, but I don't think it got much lower than 40 last night. She felt cool when she came in but didn't seem to be shivering or trembling.)

I am such a bad cat mommy.

The Trouble with Infinity

Infinity has been giving me some trouble lately - not the concept, but the symbol. You see, when I write it, it comes out all wonky-looking. You'd think it's just a sideways 8, so what's the trouble?

Actually, there are two ways that I write the number 8 - I either start at the top, go counter-clockwise, and make (not coincidentally) a figure 8, or I draw the two ovals separately. It kind of just depends on my mood.

The infinity symbol doesn't look good either way, when I write it, but I recently realized that part of the problem is that, when I write it in the "figure 8" way, I start off going clockwise, which is opposite to how I write an 8. So I started writing it counter-clockwise instead. Now my infinities look great!

...and my 8's look like crap.

Exams

This week, I have exams in abstract algebra and advanced calc. Next week is the last week of school. The following week, I'll have finals in those two classes.

The abstract algebra exam is tonight. I'm well-prepared for it, and should do well, though the tests in that class are harder than the class generally is, so I'll still have to think and work hard to do well tonight. I'm on track to get an A in the class, which I'd like to do, especially since I really enjoy the material.

Tomorrow night is the advanced calc test. I'll finish studying for that tonight, but I don't feel very well-prepared for it. There is also a take-home portion due next Monday that I'm not looking forward to. I feel in some ways really done with this class. Of the three test grades (not counting the final), one is dropped, and my other two grades are an 83% and a 92%, so I could let this one go non-catastrophically, but I'll need to know the material for the final exam anyway, so I might as well apply myself and try to do well.

Assuming this test grade is not higher than an 83% (and is thus dropped), I'll need about a 10% on the final exam in order to pass the class with a C (required for graduation), or about a 50% to get a B. It's very unlikely I would get less than a 50%, but I'd hate to scrape by with an F on the final.

My third class, the "seminar" that is not, has becoming increasingly abstruse to me. I still need to finish up the homework that was due last week, that I got stuck on and got some hints in class about, plus this week's homework. I am hoping that we'll only have one more assignment after this, rather than having one due finals week. (We won't have a final exam, at least.) I can usually fake my way through the homeworks; I have about a 98% average in the class so far.

I'm ready for the semester to be over. It still boggles my mind that I'm actually graduating.

America's Next Top Model

America's Next Top Model (hereafter ANTM) is one of my favorite TV shows. This might be surprising, considering that I have never shown any interest in fashion, conventional female attractiveness, hair and makeup, or anything you'd normally associate with modeling.

I started watching because I am basically a sucker for reality shows in which someone is dismissed at the end of each episode (I will watch almost any show of that type) and because there are a lot of ANTM episodes out there to see. I think there have been 14 seasons of the show by now, and every weekend, Oxygen broadcasts an entire season back to back, which I have my DVR record, so that basically whenever I want to just space out in front of the TV, it's likely to be ANTM that I'm watching. I think I've seen 6 or so seasons in their entirety at this point.

The setup is the same each season. Out of thousands of women who send in videotapes or are recruited in malls and the like, Tyra Banks (the supermodel who produces and hosts the show and is like a "mother hen" to the contestants) chooses 35 or so to show up. During the first episode, this gets narrowed down to about 13, and these finalists move into a fabulous house. Each week, there is a "teach" (where they learn more about runway walking, acting, posing, dancing, makeup, or some other relevant skill), a challenge (where whatever was taught is tested, with some prize for the winner), a photo shoot (or sometimes commercial shoot), and a judging, in which one woman is sent home. The finale each season has them choosing between the last three girls to see who will become "America's Next Top Model." (The prizes for winning the show include a modeling contract with Cover Girl, representation by a modeling agency, and a cover and spread inside a magazine, usually Seventeen.)

The contestants are generally all (or almost all) within the physical parameters of models - that is, tall, and thin, except that usually one or two are plus-size models (which is a specific range of size as well). Some are conventionally very pretty and others are more odd-looking. The odd-looking ones can generally skate by a bit longer in the competition by virtue of their odd looks; conventionally pretty women need to shape up quickly or they will be kicked off for being too commercial or relying on their looks.

All of this doesn't exactly sound appealing to me, but the actual show is very interesting to watch. They are always striving to make the women more edgy, less commercial, more editorial, and basically more strange. (On one episode, Tyra helped the women develop a "signature pose." One of the women - Marjorie, shown at left in a different pose - wanted to do "the hunchback of Notre Dame" as her pose, and Tyra loved it, and helped her mold it into something awesome.) The women who look strange, like Marjorie, tend to be my favorites. I usually have a favorite every season - someone I could look at for hours - and my favorite usually makes it pretty far, but so far has never won.

One thing that interests me is watching and cataloging, over time, what traits are needed to succeed on the show. The most important one I've seen is that you have to be simultaneously completely aware of your body (how it looks, how it's catching the light, what positions you personally look good in) and completely un-self-conscious (willing to try anything, look foolish, be over the top). You need to be confident but also open and willing to learn and listen to advice. Being either arrogant or insecure will not work.

I'll never be a model, but this is an attitude I want to work on having more of for grad school especially - the willingness to try things, and work hard at them, without any guarantee of success, but also without apology or insecurity. And, of course, I want the ability to receive and profit from advice from people who know more than I do.

In my own experience, humility is the key to hitting both points. Humility makes you not too afraid about failing, because you don't see your awesome glorious self as being put on the line. You're just there doing your best and learning as you go along, and you basically don't view everything as being about you and your image. I mean, I don't know any of this for sure, since I don't really have the quality that I'm talking about, but it seems to me that if I could cultivate it, it would help.

Brand Recognition

When the very first slide (shown at left) of this semi-animated ad came up in my browser, it drew my eye. More than that, I knew exactly what company it came from -- a combination, I think, of the font and what is shown in the ad (which I had not seen before, as far as I can recall). I think it's pretty impressive that the company in question has made its mark on me to this extent.

Do you recognize it too?

My SOP Word Cloud

I think it's safe to say my SOP was a bit less focused than Sally's. It also looks, to me at least, a bit more me-me-me.
Incidentally, when I made this word cloud it contained the name of a state my university is not in. I really hope that was an artifact of saving drafts at the wrong time and that I did not tell University of [Delaware] that I looked forward to studying at University of [North Dakota]. I guess it worked out all right regardless, but sheesh.

Getting Rid of Stuff

Due to a server glitch, it wasn't possible to work at my job today. I thought about coming home and taking a nap, but instead I came home and got rid of some crap, namely

• a saxophone, donated to local middle school
• 7 of the $1 reusable grocery bags full of books (and I mean really full), dropped off at the library
• 1 box of Ed's books (hanging out in the car for a while now), also donated to the library
• my camping equipment (tent, sleeping bag, and a foam mat), dropped off at a thrift store
• a big pile of DVD's (most of a $1 grocery bag), sold to a used CD/DVD store

So that was good. I am now down to about 3 shelves of books, total, and a couple more shelves of things I can't get rid of, like photo albums and binders full of CD's.

Fun with Word Clouds

Sally has posted a couple of word clouds from a recent paper and presentation. It made me think how much more...well, boring, a word cloud from a math paper would be. I don't write papers very often, but here, for instance, is the cloud from my last one (via wordle.net):



See?

Grad School Applications Round-Up

Earlier this week, I accepted the one funded offer that I received as a result of my grad school applications, and as of tonight, I have declined my offers of admission from the four other schools that admitted (but did not fund) me, and withdrawn my applications from the two schools I hadn't yet heard from. I of course did not need to communicate with the two programs that rejected me.

One of the four schools that admitted me informed me I would not receive funding. One had me on a waitlist for funding. Two had not said anything one way or the other. It's possible that I might have received an offer, especially after April 15, but now we'll never know.

So, I guess that's all done with.

Sweet Little Pandora

In the spirit of this XKCD cartoon, I will share with you all an experience I had tonight. A song came on Pandora that I think I have literally not heard since high school -- a song I would never in a million years have remembered -- and it immediately touched me, and I remembered loving it quite dearly. It was "Blue Savannah" by Erasure:



(I can't recommend the video, unfortunately. If this song were more famous it would be absolutely ripe for one of those literal video remakes.)

Erasure is one of the only two bands I have ever seen in concert, and I was totally into them in high school. There is a swoony (gay) voice thing they do that, for my adolescent self, brought up vast feelings of romantic and sexual longing -- you can hear that when he sings "to you only" in this song. In the development of my musical tastes as well as what I thought was sexy, Erasure fell chronologically right between George Michael and Depeche Mode.

Thank you, Pandora.

The Fantasy of an Uncluttered Life

Tomorrow, assuming we can make it in the snow, Ed and I are headed to our rental cabin for four days of relaxation. I plan to do a lot of math homework, read for hours on end, hang out in a hot tub (for which the snow is a bonus, assuming, again, that we can get to the cabin), eat homemade food, and just generally chill.

Aside from the hot tub and the general beauty of the surroundings,the aspects of this vacation that I'm most looking forward to are theoretically possible at home. No Internet. No TV. (The cabin has one, but I don't plan to use it.) No distractions. A lot of reading. But I wouldn't do that at home.

Sometimes I feel like it's the sheer amount of stuff in my home that keeps me distracted and unproductive. I don't really have that much stuff - we are not hoarders or anything - but I wish I had even less. I have a persistent fantasy of living in a place that is sparse, simple, utilitarian, and not only uncluttered, but incapable of becoming cluttered, by virtue of not containing things that could clutter it.

Some of this is pure fantasy, but I do want to get rid of a number of things before I leave for grad school next year. I have a lot of things I need (or choose to) hang on to, but there are other things I really can get rid of. Some highlights:

• A few years ago, I got rid of most of my books, and I'm ready to do that again. (I haven't gotten many new books in the interim, I'm just ready for the next stage.) Most of my books I will never read again, so why should I hold onto them? I plan to take these to the library nearby, where they happily accept donations for their various fundraisers.
• I am finally giving away my saxophone, which I got several years ago, and really enjoyed taking lessons in before I ran out of time and energy for it. This kind of entails giving up the fantasy of playing sax regularly, which feels sad, but it's not as though I couldn't buy a saxophone and take up playing again in the future if I wanted to. I found a local middle school that is, in the words of the band director, "always looking for quality instruments," and I will drop it off there.
• I have way more pairs of shoes than I need. Most will just go in one of those ubiquitous clothes + shoes donation dumpsters, but I have a couple of new pairs that I got a few years ago but that didn't work out for me. I have scheduled those to go up on eBay.
• Once I finish the process (begun years ago) of putting my music CDs into binders, my music collection will be reduced to three or four binders, which will take up a lot less space than the gazillion CDs in their original cases did. Most of my music is on the computer anyway.
• Various old computer equipment can go to Goodwill or a pawn shop or something.
• I am going to get rid of my tent and sleeping bag. I never, ever go camping.
• Almost all of my DVDs and videos can go. I won't watch most of them again and it's not hard to rent a movie when you want one.
  

In addition, here are some things I do not plan on moving with me to a new place:

• My dining room chairs, which do not match my table either aesthetically or in terms of height, and are just annoying.
• A couple of my bookcases, which will be empty after the book purge.
• My entertainment center, video game consoles, DVD player, receiver, speakers, or TV. I could change my mind on this, but for now I think I'm just not going to bother having a TV or any of that in the new place. (If Ed moves with me, we'll probably take this stuff, but I hope not to really have TV service. If I live alone, I think I just won't have any of it.)
• Most of my framed posters - I don't seem to care about them enough to hang them up, and they're kind of a pain to move. I can always get something else for the walls.
  

My dining room table and desk are both useful pieces of furniture that can be disassembled into a much more convenient size, so they will stay (unless Mosch decides he wants the desk back). I may get another sparse type of desk - I would like to have one that doesn't have my computer on it at all, since computers are very distracting to me. I'd like a desk like this or this from Ikea.

Here are some other things I plan to keep:

• My bed (it's great, very comfy, and everyone needs a bed)
• My clothes (at least the ones that fit)
• Towels and sheets
• Kitchen equipment
• Photo albums
• Yearbooks
• Seymour (my first stuffed animal)
  
• My filing cabinet and its contents
• My little nested teak end tables
• Cat equipment (litter box, carriers, etc.)

That's the plan.

Or There Is Always Plan B

Next week, after my cabin vacation with Ed (woot), I am flying to visit one of the graduate programs to which I have been admitted. I think I might get a pretty sweet financial deal there and I want to get a feel for the department. Meanwhile, given that I don't have financial packages piling up on my doorstep, I have made preparations for a solid Plan B.

Plan B would consist of doing a master's degree in applied math at a local public university. I hadn't applied to this school, but the deadline is April 1 (and it's not a very firm deadline), and today I filled out the application, wrote the SOP, had the transcripts and GRE scores sent, begged one more letter from my poor recommenders, and am about to mail them the signed forms and stamped, addressed envelopes, etc., so that should be completely taken care of. (In other news, I have gotten pretty good at doing at least basic graduate school applications.)

I don't feel that this master's program is very competitive, so I think I have a good chance of being admitted, especially as I am not seeking any funding. My plan would be to do this program full time, but cut back my actual job to half-time. I think a 20-hour job plus full time graduate study is doable (many TAships take 20 hours anyway), particularly at a perhaps not terrifically demanding program, and half-time at my job would pay more than most graduate stipends, even with full tuition and fees deducted.

In related news, today I let my boss at work in on my graduate plans. She was happy for me, and supportive, but afterwards also (jokingly) called me "bitch" and "ignorant slut." She was quite grateful for the ~ four months of notice, which should give them enough time to hire someone to replace me. She said she is selfishly hoping that the Plan B option is what happens, so that they can keep me part time. (This company is also quite possibly moving to within a few blocks of the Plan B University, which would be mighty convenient.)

I am pretty excited about both Plan A and Plan B at this point even though they are rather different paths. The idea of Plan B is that afterwards I could either work in industry (or government) in a more professional position, or apply to doctoral programs as a (hopefully) stronger candidate.

Living Under Threat

I made a discovery about myself and my motivations a few months ago in therapy, and I think I wrote about it at the time, but it's worth revisiting because I keep realizing it over and over and it's something I need to remember to apply. And that is that (a) I respond much more strongly to positive than to negative motivations, and yet (b) my natural instinct is to try to motivate myself negatively.

I don't remember, as a child, ever being given positive reasons to do anything. (I mean, of course I was given positive motivations for things that are intrinsically fun, like swimming or going to Disney World. I'm talking here about things one would not naturally want to do.) It was never, "Eat your vegetables so you'll grow big and strong," or, "Think how great you'll feel when your homework is all finished," or, "If you're an honest person then people will trust and respect you." The reason for doing something hard was always the avoidance of some negative outcome like not getting into a good program in school or being disbelieved or being one of those ridiculous children who will only eat hamburgers.

This strikes me now as a bit odd (although possibly not as odd as it actually is).

Last night, I needed to finish the homework for my Seminar class today. I really didn't want to - I wasn't looking forward to puzzling out the proofs I needed to write, and the class doesn't (generally) interest me that much. I really fought myself over it, but there was no way I could justify not turning it in. But I didn't want to do it. But if I didn't do it, then I wouldn't have it, and I'd have to do it later and apologize to Dr. Ruch again and feel bad about it.

Eventually I was able to cajole myself into doing the assignment, which turned out to be really easy once I was willing to put in the required organized effort. And once it was done, I felt amazing! I absolutely love the feeling of having a completed assignement ready to turn in. Also, the proofs turned out to be moderately fun. Overall it was terrifically satisfying and I was really high from it.

And that is how I should have motivated myself, not by pondering how screwed I would be if I didn't do it, and by convincing myself I had no choice (which is pretty much never true, and don't think I don't know it), but by thinking about how much I would enjoy having it done, and how good I would feel about finishing it on time and doing a good job on it. But that type of motivation doesn't often occur to me.

The thing is, after a lifetime of living under threats (my mom's, when I was a kid, and my own internal ones), I am not very responsive to them. Not that many horrible things have ever happened to me as a result of my actions (or inaction), so most of those past threats have turned out to be baloney. Other threats ("I need to lose weight or I'll die of diabetes") are either far in the future or so horrible that they cause me to avoid thinking about the topic at all.

And who wants to live a life of doing things just to avoid some bad outcome? I mean, seriously? I am a descendent of millions of generations of humans and other creatures who survived despite the perilous nature of living, and I live in the safest and happiest time of all (so far). It's no wonder I'm not that easily frightened.

For the most part, if my only motivations for doing something are negative, it better be pretty easy. Wearing a seat belt is a good example of something easy that we only do to avoid something bad. Everything else worth doing has some positive reason behind it - it's satisfying, or remunerative, or improves the quality of one's life in some other way.

So, to hell with threats. I am gonna MESS THESE THREATS UP. I call them out.

Looks Like I'm Going to Grad School

Nothing is fully determined yet, but I have been assured by the grad director at one school that I will either get a nice fellowship from the school, or a TAship and tuition + fee waiver. I should find out either at the end of this week, or in a couple of weeks. The offer is good enough (either way) that, if it's my best offer, I'll go. I'm pretty psyched.

Once I have an offer on paper I will let my boss (and, by extension, my coworkers) know. I'm friends with one and he knows already, but the rest do not, and I don't see any reason not to give them a few months' notice rather than a couple of weeks. And it's getting a little awkward when people congratulate me on my impending graduation and either ask what I'm going to do next or say I must be relieved that I won't have to do icky school anymore.

Feeling Dumb at Math

My advanced calculus class this semester (part II of the sequence), despite being taught by the same (great) professor, has so far been vastly harder than the first semester. It has been hard enough that I got an 83% on the first exam, which is lower than any of my exam grades (including the one I dropped, and knew ahead of time I would be dropping) from last semester.

We started with sequences of functions, then moved on to series (of numbers), and then to series of functions. I basically skipped this material entirely when I took Calc II in 1991, but I have since reviewed that entire chapter of a regular calculus textbook. I am keeping up with (and doing well on) the homework, but every assignment is difficult-to-impossible and the situation doesn't seem to be improving.

Assuming I go to grad school next year, I'll be taking graduate-level analysis, so the difficulty of this material only makes it more beneficial to be seeing now, rather than for the first time next year. But it's been very hard for me to persevere with it when it often seems as though I'm not improving [note: this is objectively false as best I can determine]. The assignments often frustrate me to the point of tears or rage.

I decided on Saturday night to try to take a humbler approach to the material, to not let it be about whether I am smart or not (a real weakness of mine), but to see myself as a servant (if you will) of the math. I'm not sure it's having any effect yet, but I'm going to keep trying it.

I know that if I'm going to get anywhere in math, I have to learn to work without the promise of success - to work on problems that are hard enough that I may feel stupid and hopeless for quite some time. I guess this is good practice for that.

Shutter Island

On a whim, at 7:00 last night I went to see Shutter Island, the Martin Scorcese movie about two federal marshals (Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) in the 1950's who investigate a woman's disappearance on a small island on which there is an asylum for the criminally insane. It may be that the asylum is being used for cruel psychiatric experiments, or something of the kind, and the previews hint at questions of whether it will be possible for the marshals to leave once they have arrived.

The movie was creepy and a bit scary, and the ending was less predictable than I had anticipated. I'd say that if the premise or previews for this movie appeal to you, it's well worth seeing.

(Oh, one note. If you try to avoid movies with Holocaust imagery, know that one of the marshals has frequent flashbacks/dreams about liberating Dachau.)

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

It's only 6:45 PM here, but I'm about at the end of my homework-doing rope. I got the abstract algebra homework finished this morning with relative ease, and I have finished two out of six homework problems for advanced calculus, and made a good start on a third, but I can't seem to continue further. Apparently there are limits to my ability to work on math. Who knew?

In other news, I got 5 loads of laundry done this weekend as well, which is pretty good.

Bah.

My Day

I've been sick most of this week, and have fallen grievously (by my standards) behind in my courses. So I am counting on this weekend as a big catch-up time.

I got up at 8:30, unusual in and of itself. I went to bed at 10:30 last night promising myself a good 12-14 hours of sleep (I needed it), but I seemed ready to get up at 8:30, so I did.

With breaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I spent nearly all day at my desk doing math. I have to admit that the math was interspersed with web-surfing, which is a very bad habit of mine that is hard to break. Nevertheless, I was at my desk from about 9:30 AM until about 10:30 PM with only a couple of hours of breaks, which means I got a lot done even though I didn't work consistently all day (and the ratio of surfing to work increased as the day wore on).

Here is what I did:

• Reviewed about five sections of my old calculus textbook to learn/remember what there is to know about power series, Taylor polynomials, and Taylor series, on that level.
• Completed the homework due last Wednesday in Advanced Calc II.
• Wrote my academic-oriented resume (or slightly CV-like document).
  

That doesn't sound like much, but it actually was. The homework was long and involved some concepts I felt shaky on, so I had to do a lot of exploratory work to really get it. I think it is a good homework.

Oh, and about the CV/resume. I was asked to send one to the graduate director of one of the programs I've applied to because they want to submit me for a university-wide fellowship that they think I have a good shot at. So that is very exciting! The professor told me that the resume (he did not call it a CV) did not need to be anything "fancy" so I just buckled down and did it without trying to make it ultra-perfect. There is not that much to say, really. I basically took my regular resume, put academic things on top of the work things, and very concisely summarized the work things so they wouldn't be bored out of their minds by lists of industry-specific software packages I know, etc.

Here is what I hope to do tomorrow:

• Finish the abstract algebra homework that is due Tuesday.
• Go over the material I missed in seminar Friday, and start on that homework. (It is due Friday, but I need to start early to give myself a good chance to think about the hard parts between now and then.)
• Get a good start on the advanced calculus homework due Wednesday.

Between now and tomorrow morning, I have one very important task:

• Get a good night's sleep.

So I will go do that now. Best wishes to you for a productive (or relaxing, as you choose) weekend!

Google Buzz

Google Buzz (the new Facebooky-thing you may have seen it show up in your Gmail account) is causing a lot of stir around privacy concerns. I've turned mine off for now (it's a link at the bottom of the Gmail screen).

It's not that I'm that careful about privacy things in general. I don't care much that my grocery store card is tied to my real name so anyone might find out how often I buy razor blades or what flavors of ice cream I prefer. But the thing about these various offerings from Google (including the thing where someone can follow you on Google Reader) is that I can never figure out exactly what information is and isn't being shared.

You see, I have various email correspondents. Very few are private, but those few do exist. And I subscribe to a variety of RSS feeds in Google Reader, and I most definitely do not want them shared with everyone I email from my Gmail account (e.g., my coworkers, directors of graduate studies for the schools I've applied to, ...). I can't tell if Buzz does that or not.

What I like about Facebook is that it's a self-contained universe. Don't want something about yourself on Facebook? Just don't do that thing on Facebook. If you're secretly obsessed with manga, you don't have to share that with your Uncle Herbert or your best friend from 5th grade as long as you don't join some kind of manga-lovers group. You can craft your (more or less public) image however you choose. Since nothing manga-related is in any part of your profile, you don't have to know too much about the various privacy setting options in order to keep clear of it.

The various things I do with Gmail and Google Reader, on the other hand, are closer to my real interests, and thus I would rather not share them willy-nilly in a way I don't completely understand. In short, there is something to be said for not integrating services.